JETS HAVE "ALLOCATED" FUNDS TO EXTEND WILKERSON

Chris Nimbley

03/19/2015

When ex-GM John Idzik first took over the Jets roster his first major task was to trade Darrelle Revis. New Jets GM, Mike Maccagnan, not only got Revis back but one of his first major tasks, within the roster, he faces is to find a way to extend Muhammad Wilkerson.

Of course the situations are completely different as the task to trade Revis was born out of Woody Johnson’s frustrations with the constant holdouts while
Wilkerson has continued to play the good solider and not make even a peep of discontent with his contract. But that doesn’t mean fans and people around the
league aren’t watching closely waiting to see what Maccagnan’s plans for Wilkerson are.

Wilkerson still has one more year remaining on his rookie contract (which will pay him $6,969,000 this season) and even if the two sides fail to reach an
agreement on an extension the Jets can always use the franchise tag on him to ensure he stays with the Jets and work towards an extension afterwards. So,
while many people are wondering why the Jets haven’t already extended him there really is no rush.

Speaking to reporters on a conference call today Maccagnan said that while they certainly want to keep Wilkerson with the Jets past this year he doesn’t
want to put a timetable on when something has to get done.

“Well, Muhammad is obviously a very good player and we definitely want to keep him in the organization. I don’t want to put a timeframe on it but it is
something we will address sometime in the future,” Maccagnan said. “It’s going to be a process, I understand that, in terms of working with any player to
try to find a place where you have to an agreement in terms of value, but no there is no timeframe on Muhammad. We do have the ability and have allocated
resources to potentially do that with him but again that all will unfold here sometime in the future but I don’t want to put a timetable to create any undo
stress or pressure.”

So, while there clearly isn’t any type of rush to extend Wilkerson the most important part of that quote is “we do have the ability and have allocated
resources to potentially do that with him.” With the recent spending spree it was important to make sure the Jets didn’t spend so much that it would make
extending Wilkerson difficult.

If they were to find themselves in that position it would likely mean they weren’t too concerned about extending him. But to go on a spending spree like
they have and still have allocated the funds to extend Wilkerson shows Maccagnan is planning to do just that, eventually.